1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for the management of a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description is concerned with a data communications network such as a local area network (LAN) but has more widespread applicability to other managed networks including wide area networks (WANs) and wireless communications systems.
Networks typically comprise a plurality of computer systems, peripherals and other electronic devices capable of communicating with each other by sending and receiving data packets in accordance with a predefined protocol. Each computer or other device on the network is connected by a port to the network media, which in the of case an Ethernet or LAN network may be coaxial or twisted pair cable or fibre optic cable. Each device on the network typically has hardware for media access control (MAC) with its own unique MAC address. Data packets are sent and received in accordance with the MAC protocol whereby the data packets identify the source MAC address (i.e. the MAC address of the device sending the data packet) and the destination MAC address (i.e. the MAC address of the device for which the data packet is destined) in the header of the data packet.
A network is generally configured with devices having a plurality of ports which can be used to interconnect a plurality of media links on the network. Such devices include hubs, routers and switches which pass data packets received at one port to one or more of its other ports, depending upon the type of device. Such devices can either be managed or unmanaged. Managed devices have processing capability including the capability of leaning the MAC addresses of the devices connected to their ports by monitoring the source address of data packets passing through the respective ports. Identified source addresses transmitted from a port of a managed network device, such as a router, hub or switch, are stored in a respective address table associated with the port. Managed devices additionally have the capability of communicating data, such as that stored in their port address tables, to other managed devices. This data is transmitted in accordance with a predetermined protocol in accordance with the network management system (for example the SNMP protocol). Unmanaged network devices do not have these capabilities.
It is becoming increasingly commonplace for an individual to be responsible for network management, and his or her computer system or workstation is typically designated the network management station. The network management station incorporates the necessary application hardware and software to retrieve data from the managed devices on the network in order to determine factors about the operation of the network. The data retrieved from the managed network devices is typically compiled and graphically displayed on the visual display unit of the network management station for the network manager or administrator to interpret.
In known network management systems, the manner in which the relevant data is retrieved from the managed devices, compiled and displayed has been problematic in several respects. Firstly, the data received from each of the managed devices is simply compiled and displayed as a list of data for the user to interpret. Secondly, the data does not provide information about unmanaged devices. Thirdly, information about a given network device, such as the type of device, location of the device on the network and operating speed of the device, may be contained in different sections of the compiled data. Consequently, conventional systems are cumbersome and difficult to use. Previous methods of improving the display of network management data has required users to invoke dialogs (separate windows of text) containing more information about the object or device on the network. The difficulty in using such dialogs is that they are slow, and require more user interaction to open and close them. These disadvantages are exacerbated if the user wishes to view the details of several devices either simultaneously or in turn. In addition, the use of extra windows and text to display detailed information about a device may utilise a large proportion of the screen of the visual display unit and thus obscure information about other devices on the network.
Accordingly, the present invention aims to provide a more convenient and user-friendly way of retrieving, compiling and displaying complete and understandable information about devices on the network and the network topology.
In accordance with a first aspect, the present invention provides a network management apparatus comprising:
a port for connecting to a network and for receiving management data from network devices on a network;
a processor for processing the received management data to determine substantially the complete topology of the network and provide image data representative thereof; and
a display for receiving the image data and displaying a graphical representation of the network;
wherein the processor is configured to process the received management data to obtain object data for each network object, and to provide said object data for each network object to the display for display in graphical form by means of an object tip or tool tip when the user points to a predetermined part of the graphical representation of the corresponding network object on the display.
In accordance with a second aspect the present invention provides a method for operating a network management apparatus, the method comprising:
receiving management data from network devices on the network at a management port;
processing the management data to determine substantially the complete network topology and to obtain image data representative of the network topology;
displaying the image data on a display in the form of a graphical representation of the network; the method further including
processing the received management data to obtain object data representing information about each network object on the network; and
in response to a pointer pointing to a predetermined part of the graphical representation of a network object on the display, providing said object data to the display for display, in the form of an object tip or tool tip, of the object data, representing the corresponding network object, on the display.
In accordance with a third aspect, the present invention provides a computer program for performing the method of the second aspect of the present invention, embodied on a computer readable medium or embodied in a carrier wave.
The present invention, by utilising object tips (or tool tips) which may be activated by the user simply by placing the pointer at an appropriate position on the screen (e.g. by using a mouse) the network manager can more quickly view more detailed information about a given device or its link without positive interaction with the network management station to open and close dialogs. Furthermore, since the detailed information is normally hidden from the user, the information does not clutter the graphical display of information on the screen. Thus, the present invention is quicker and simpler to use and can provide detailed information which may be required by the network manager without obscuring the display screen.